"Trying to Run God"
Sermon Transcript for September 28, 2003
(4th message in a 4-part sermon series)By Rev. Mike Beck
We conclude today our sermon series on the Book of Jonah. In Chapter 1, Jonah was “Running From God”. In Chapter 2, he “Runs Into God”. Chapter 3, last week, he starts to “Run with God”, but as we’ll see today it was probably a rather reluctant obedience. Which brings us to Chapter 4, one of the most bizarre chapters in all of Scripture. Jonah preaches God’s message, the people respond, all the way up through the King, and then Jonah gets upset because God is merciful and the people of Nineveh are spared punishment! So the title for this final message, Jonah is now “Trying to Run God”!
Jonah should have gone home rejoicing that despite his disobedience, God was still able to use him. But no, he gives this incredible response that begins the 4th Chapter: “But Jonah was displeased and became angry!” And so Jonah begins to pray one of the most unbelievable prayers in all of scripture in versus 2 and 3. Let me paraphrase his words. He says to God, “Lord, I knew it! Didn’t I say to myself when I left to go to Tarshish that You were a gracious God, you were merciful, you were slow to anger, you were abounding in steadfast love? God, that’s what I was afraid of all along!” Jonah says he is praying, but friends do you see what he is really doing? He’s preaching now to God!
Listen to these words of poet, Thomas Carlisle. Jonah says in the words of Thomas Carlisle, “I told you, I screamed. I knew what You would do, you dirty forgiver! You bless Your enemies and you show kindness to those who despitefully use You. Well, God, I’d rather die than live in a world with a God like You. And don’t try to forgive me either! I hated Your enemies with a perfect hatred! Why can’t You do the same?”
It’s a logical question. Why was Jonah angry? Well, maybe he feels that God had embarrassed him for he had told the people of Nineveh, his message was simple, “Forty days, you either repent or you have had it!” And then that didn’t happen, in terms of them being punished, so maybe he felt his reputation as a prophet was now ruined. Or maybe it was because like every true Israelite, he hated the Assyrians. He was hoping for their destruction. And now that wasn’t going to happen.
No doubt there is some truth in each of those possibilities, but I want us to look deeper. The real reason for Jonah’s anger, and it is the point of the sermon we often miss, was that deep down inside Jonah did not like or understand the nature and the character of God. Jonah was upset that he couldn’t run God. He couldn’t make God act the way he thought God ought to act. Jonah is kind of an original “Archie Bunker”. He’s saying to God, “God you are too soft on people. Why can’t you be a hard-liner like me?”
One of my former District Superintendents in a conversation several years ago told me about a church that was upset about the last couple of preachers that had been appointed to their church. So they were getting ready to get a new preacher, and the D.S. came in to talk to the Staff/Parish Committee and he asked them what they were looking for. Here was their reply; I still get a kick out of this. They said, “We want some real preaching. We’ve had enough of this love and grace stuff. Give us some good old hell, fire, and damnation. We’ve had enough of hearing about God’s love and grace.”
In verse 5 of Chapter 4, we get one final scene of the chess match going on between God and Jonah. Jonah goes out to the edge of town to sulk and then in Verse 6 it says, “Then the Lord provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head…” The Lord is still working with Jonah--this time through an object lesson. For the next day, God causes the vine to wither and die. Jonah has now lost his shade and he feels sorry not only for himself but he now feels sorry for this little vine that’s withered and died! And now that God has made his point, we read God’s final words to Jonah in the very abrupt ending to the story in verses 10 and 11. The Lord said, “Jonah, you’ve been concerned about this vine though you didn’t tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight; it died overnight.” You’ve heard me say often, one of the most important words in Scripture is the little word “but”. Whenever you see that word, watch what comes! “But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people who can not tell their right hand from their left, including cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?” End of story!
You see what Jonah had done was he had tried to put God in a box of his own making. He was trying to tell God how God ought to run His world. And Jonah was sure he had figured out what God was going to do. He would go to Nineveh; he would do his preaching for 40 days, the people would repent. Then he would go out to the edge of town and watch fire and brimstone come down on these people from Heaven. Kind of like the last scene from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” if you’ve seen that movie where God just zaps them all. But anytime, my friends, the creature tries to take on the role of the Creator, take it to the bank there is going to be problems. Disillusionment, anger, resentment are all going to happen when we try to play God and tell God what God ought to do. And if you remember, jumping this story ahead, that’s exactly what happened with the religious leaders of Jesus’ day. The scribes and the Pharisees had their religion but had placed God in a nice, neat box of rules and regulations. But when God in the person of Christ came and dwelt among them, He didn’t fit their box! He asked them to think about themselves and their world in a different way. And if you remember, they refused to do that. And they did more than go out to the edge of town and sulk. They had this Jesus crucified so that they could try and continue on with their “god in a box”!
Friends, we can be religious and go to church every Sunday and be miles away from the Kingdom of God that Jesus came to bring. The “Jonah syndrome” can be found in individuals. I’m not going to elaborate on these; I’m just going to pause in between them. I invite you to allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you as you ask yourself the question, “Am I guilty of this?” The “Jonah syndrome” is found in individuals when we try to limit God, when we say, “Well, God I guess you could do that but you couldn’t do that!” It is present in individuals when we tell God how God has to act. When we say to God, “Well, God, I’ve done this now you are obligated to do this!” We fall in to the “Jonah syndrome” when we try to put God in a box and seek to stifle the work of His Holy Spirit.
And the “Jonah syndrome” can also be found in churches. Here are three tell-tale signs that reveal when that is taking place: You know the “Jonah syndrome” is at work in God’s church when our traditions become more important than the needs of people. When our traditions become the thing that we worship. The Jonah syndrome” is present in churches when the focus is primarily on “us” instead of on those that haven’t yet come to know Christ. The church is the only institution that exists primarily for those who are not yet a part of its fellowship. It took a long time for those words of my father to begin to sink in to me. It’s not about what we need. We’ve come to know the Savior! We exist for people who haven’t yet come to know Christ! The “Jonah syndrome” exists in churches when through our words and our attitudes and our actions we forget about “grace”. When the person with the bad reputation comes to our worship service on Sunday morning, but instead of celebrating that our conversation at the dinner table is, “Can you believe that they have the audacity to come to our church?”
Friends, the church is called to be God’s answer for the needs of a broken world. It’s called to be a fellowship of forgiven sinners. And yet how easy it is if we’re not careful to turn the church into a spiritual country club for “good people like us” to come and do our religious thing. And at times we even look out on the world with a rather hard line wishing God would somehow bring down “fire and brimstone” on all those evil folks around us.
The story of Jonah ends so abruptly. It ends with a question mark! It leaves us hanging in mid-air just like the story of the Prodigal Son in the New Testament. If you remember how that story ends, we never know whether the elder brother comes to the party. It ends without an ending – it just stops! God says, “Should I not be concerned about the great city?” End of story! It’s one of the “unfinished symphonies” in God’s Word. And so I leave you with this question today, “Where are you in the story of Jonah?” Are you still running away from God? Or, are circumstances beginning to happen where you are sensing you are running in to God? That’s not a bad thing at all. Is it possible that you and I are trying to run God? Or are you running with God wherever He might choose to lead?
Let us pray, “How amazing it is, Eternal God, that you take words that were written perhaps as many as 3,000 years ago, and you can speak your Word to us. Help us, Lord. Empower the Holy Spirit depending not on ourselves but on You to run with you wherever that path may lead us. It is in Jesus’ name that we pray, Amen.”
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